Survival is Magic

“Say pal,”

Twilight heard a deep male voice just as she was fading back into consciousness. She felt seriously groggy and her mind was clouded, it had a strange feeling to it, almost as if she was forgetting something she knew she should remember.

“You don’t look so good.”

That voice was familiar… the phonograph! That was the voice that had given her all of that strange knowledge that had encouraged her to build that machine, something that seemed like the most stupid and unbelievably gullible decision she’d made in her life.

“You’d better find something to eat before night comes.”

Twilight’s intent on seeing the pony who’d done this outweighed her lack of energy. She managed to get her eyes open and what she saw wasn’t anywhere in the realm of what she thought she’d see. She expected some dark looking pony. What she saw was a creature that may as well come out of a horror story as far as she was concerned.

She saw a thin, bipedal creature wearing something that reminded Twilight of a pinstripe suit if it had been tailored for Discord, who, Twilight realized, bore some similarities to this thing. It stood on two legs, straight up, but where Discord was a mix and match of various animals, this creature was completely symmetrical, with pale skin, fleshy phalanges extending from its upper appendages that reminded Twilight of claws but were in no way sharp, pointy shoes (black), and a large head with a jutting chin, rather pointed nose, very short black mane that was combed down in a way Twilight was sure Rarity would have even approved of, and a most shocking detail- incredibly normal eyes. Sure they small, but Twilight could see the whites around dark pupils; they were intelligent eyes. The suit had a rose pinned to it, and the creature was holding a cigar. None of these details meant much to Twilight, though, as the ones that reminded her so much of Discord.

The creature, like Discord, was tall. It towered over her in the same way Discord did, but where Discord often hunched over or bent down like a snake, this creature held itself up over her, straight as tower. It made Twilight feel very, very small. The second feature that Twilight found so disgustingly similar to Discord was its smile. It was perfect- nothing like Discords crooked grin with that one sharp tooth hanging out- it was thin, perfect teeth just barely showing, and it was grin that Twilight knew even if it was a different smile on a different face. It was that insincere smile that said, “You’re a toy to me. I’m going to enjoy breaking you.” It was the detail that suddenly made Twilight more than a little worried for her safety.

The creature had lingered a while longer than it would have normally, but Twilight had no knowledge of that. She just knew that as soon as she had enough time to take in what she saw, it vanished- poof- puff of smoke included, and she was completely alone. Twilight found that her energy had finally returned and she got up to take a look around at her surroundings. She was in what she might describe as a meadow. The grass was green, trees were sparse, bunnies were plentif- wait what were those? Twilight took a moment as she stared at one of the little fluffy critters that she’d woken up near. It looked just like a rabbit- if rabbits had antlers. It was a jackalope. They were rare in Equestria, but here every rabbit she saw was a jackalope.

Curiosity compelled her to examine the specimen more closely, however before she could get anywhere near one, the poor thing squealed like it had just seen bloody murder and dashed for its burrow. Twilight was shocked. She was by no means an animal expert, but she was at least used to animals not treating her like a predator. She attempted further with several more of the jackalope bunnies, but to the same result. These creatures had experienced something to make them innately afraid of her. Twilight had no explanation she could think of offhand. She would have continued thinking about the matter, but that creature’s words held a certain truth to them- she needed to find food.

There were berry bushes aplenty in this meadow, all promising a bountiful harvest, but the berries were a bright red, which Twilight knew to be a common sign of poison in nature (after all, it was why nopony ate tomatoes for the longest time) and decided not to risk it unless absolutely necessary. She explored the land for little more than an hour before she found a decent substitute. It was an orange root just barely noticeable above the ground, one that was impossible to mistake- it was a carrot. It took nothing more than a quick levitation based yank to free the root from the ground, and Twilight had something to eat, not that she was particularly hungry at the moment. Not knowing how long she could be here, Twilight knew she needed to ration her food. She now faced a new problem. Twilight realized that she had no saddlebags! She had nowhere to put anything! She began pacing in an attempt to help herself think.

“Okay, Twilight, this can worked around. All you need to do is come up with some sort of holding container. You have learned a number of magics, so it should be n-”

She lost her telekinetic grip on the carrot as a sudden realization jolted her in a stupor. She thought, and she thought, and she thought, and the more she thought the more she noticed that she couldn’t think about. She couldn’t remember her spells. She couldn’t remember her spells!

Twilight powered up her horn and attempted a magic that had come naturally to her for years despite its level- teleportation. She picked a spot to focus on, channeled the magic, and… couldn’t remember what came next. The energy glowing on her horn dissipated, and she stood there, horrified. She couldn’t remember her own magic. It was as if the very knowledge had been sealed away from her. She had no magic! The very thing that defined her was suddenly missing! She began pacing again trying to form some kind of explanation.

“Okay, can’t use magic. Why can’t I use magic? Obvious answer: that creature did something to me. It was obviously skilled in magic since it knew how to make that machine and could project its voice through the phonograph. Now, how can I get my magic back? I have no idea whatsoever. I can’t even teleport, although I can still use levitation, but that’s not even considered a cantrip since even unicorn foals can manage levitation, and this puts me back at a level that even a schoolfilly would laugh at, and I can only imagine what I might look like to Celestia right now, some protege I am, not even able to teleport, and they’re going to have to put me back into magic kindergarten after this! Oh no. I’ll have to learn the basics of transformation all over again! ‘What’s the magical structure of summons spell?’ I have no idea! I’m a failure to magic! F-A-I-L-U-R-E. How can this happen to me? I’m the Element of Magic! No! I don’t deserve to be called the Element of Magic! How can I claim to be the Element of Magic like this!? If I tried to wear it now, it’d probably reject me! Oh no. The Elements are a bond we share! What’s going to happen if I can’t be part of that any more!? I’m going to have to give up my friends! That can’t happen! How can I possibly hope to find anyone that can make up for them!? I’ll be all alone again, and this time I’ll actually notice! No, wait, I’m already alone! There’s no one else here! I don’t know where I am, I have no magic, I’m lost, I’m alone, the sun’s going down, it’ll be dark soon, I’m hungry, all I have is a carrot, I don’t have any way of making a fire, and I’m going to die out here! Alone! Alone… would they follow me in? Are they searching for me? Are they under the same curse that I am? What it they are? I can’t just die out here if they’re searching for me! My friends will find me, and I refuse to die! So I need to… build a fire! ...No it’s getting a little late for that and I don’t have any wood. Those saplings, though… those look like some good sticks… and these rocks that I’ve seen everywhere… these are flint! Well, I think with some grass, and a couple of sticks I could make a decent torch, magic or no magic!”

And thus Twilight crunched down her carrot, dirt and all, and gathered her materials before facing the real problem- getting a spark. She wasn’t exactly a fillyscout, and it was getting dark. Really dark… Twilight resorted to the old knock-em-into-each-other-and-hope-it-works method. Sparks were coming off the rocks, but weren’t doing anything for the grass wrapped twigs, so she tried more of a scratching method she thought might direct the sparks toward the torch. It was working, but the dry grass was still a bit reluctant, until Twilight saw the grass catch, and did it ever catch! The torch lit up like the grass was magnesium, and the glow surrounded Twilight. A good thing, she found, since she noticed she couldn’t see past the torch-light. It was literally pitch black, and worse- she thought she saw eyes looking at her. It looked like white eyes were looking in at her from all around in the dark. This whole ordeal was frightening; they looked like they could come in and attack her at any time, and it was as if the torch was the only thing keeping them at bay. Twilight shuddered to think what might’ve happened had she not gotten her torch lit in time.

Looking at her source of light and life, Twilight realized that it probably wouldn’t last the night, so with her limited vision she scrounged around for materials with which to make a second torch, all while hoping for another carrot, because she realized that she was only getting hungrier, but she needed some way to carry more. She was reaching the limits of here levitation, which (she realized with no small deal of pain) was actually much less powerful than it was normally. It was like there was an invisible limiter on her horn. The dark wasn’t helping, or those ever present eyes. Wait… there wasn’t anywhere in this meadow for monsters to hide, was there? So where would these come from? Even when she walked toward them, they just vanished… so they might just be figments of her terrified imagination. That seemed logical, and so Twilight decided to go with that theory for the time being, and it reminded her of a familiar tune she began to hum to herself as she explored, got her second torch ready and searched for carrots.

“Giggle at the ghosty, guffaw at the grossly, crack up at the creepy, whoop it up with the weepy, chortle at the kooky, snortle at the spooky.”

Twilight giggled at Pinkie Pie’s ridiculous song- the song that taught them not to be afraid of what couldn’t hurt them, and Twilight found it to be comforting despite the fact that the eyes did not, in fact, disappear. They still couldn’t hurt her, and that made them a good deal less scary. Not nonexistent, but a solid deal less terrifying. They did disappear with the rise of the sun though. As the sun came up a tired, frightened, but very alive Twilight Sparkle snuffed out her second torch in hopes of saving it for the following night. The sun rose on a new day that Twilight was determined to make it through. ...And maybe sample some of those tasty looking red berries.